Drivers thought the PIs had stopped in late December, but Ciravolo said the surveillance continued until February.

Ciravolo wouldn’t reveal who hired his company or for how much. Past clients of the firm founded by famed ex-NYPD Detective Bo Dietl have paid upwards of $250 per hour.

Drivers suspect the surveillance operation was the work of real-estate mogul Steve Nislick, the co-founder of NYCLASS, a group trying to ban horse carriages.

When confronted by The Post, Nislick said he knew about the video. Asked if he funded the surveillance, he replied, “I’ll get back to you.” He never called back.

Footage captured by the private investigators and released exclusively to The Post reveals carriage horse drivers breaking a slew of traffic violations.

In just one day of filming in December, private investigators purportedly caught drivers ignoring red lights on 30 occasions. They also observed drivers using cell phones, horses forced to work over the nine-hour daily limit on Valentine’s Day, and riders taking horses down “do not enter” or “wrong way” streets.